HDU (5 page)

“She’s so cute!
Love her.”

“so happy nat
is landing real acting jobs!”

“Loved her on
Nat & Kat In NY.
 
I’m so
watching this if she gets it.”

Amanda scratched her chin, furrowing her brow with
confusion
.

Message from PrettyKitty29 (Moderator) to
FilmFreak (Moderator):

Hey dude,

I guess no one will miss a forty-comment
post, but can you tell me the reason why? Thanks.

<3,

PK

Before Amanda could even shut her laptop to go pour herself a glass of
water, she heard the familiar
ding
.
 
It was FilmFreak again.
 
Amanda marveled at his speed, though
she realized that the message consisted of just five words.

Message
from PrettyKitty29 (Moderator) to FilmFreak (Moderator):

She’s my ex.
 
Hate her.

Amanda’s eyes widened.
 
For some reason, she had always thought FilmFreak was a gay
male.
 
Perhaps he was simply into
homoerotic humor.
 
He had always
referred to Dylan Hardy as a “flawless god” or “beautiful specimen.”
 
Though perhaps there was nothing
homoerotic about it at all.
 
Dylan
was flawless and beautiful.

Only after that thought did Amanda realize the true
shock of the message.
 
He had
dated
Natalie Bell!
Her
friend, FilmFreak, was once the boyfriend to an actual
celebrity
! Indeed she was a C-Lister,
but at least she was climbing her way up to B-List status!

Oh, but wait
.
 
Amanda’s mouth stayed frozen in an “O” formation.
 
She suddenly understood the urgency in
FilmFreak’s initial message.
 
Despite her excitement, she promptly deleted the post as he had requested.
 
She didn’t like to break HDU rules, but
this was a small one, and she knew just what it was like to witness the success
of someone close – someone close whom you hated.
 
The feeling washed over her on Rams
game nights, especially when the camera focused for a few moments on the
cheerleaders.
 
Megan had always
wanted to be either a TV actress or a dancer.
 
For her, being an NFL cheerleader was like a perfect mix of
both.
 

It reminded Amanda that at twenty-two, she still had
no idea what she wanted to be.
 
But
before she could fall back into a dark place, her laptop sounded.
 
Boop
.
 
Instead of a message, it was a chat
notification.

FilmFreak
: ty for deleting. just having one of those
days. sorry

Amanda frowned, heaving a sigh.

PrettyKitty29
: if you mean the hate-my-life kind, i’m
with ya

FilmFreak
: :-( why

PrettyKitty29
: i need to get out of missouri. MISERY!!!

FilmFreak
: lol. everywhere is misery when you’re surrounded
by assholes. ny included.

PrettyKitty29
: bite ur tongue i’d kill to live there

FilmFreak
: no i need to gtfo. just need a break from
the city it reminds me of natalie

FilmFreak
: agh. so emo. sorry

Amanda laughed, but sadly.

PrettyKitty29
: don’t be. i understand. more than you
would think

FilmFreak
: ?

PrettyKitty29
: too long of a story!

FilmFreak
: then tell me in person. i’ll fly out to MO
tomorrow. i need a change in scenery asap

PrettyKitty29
: lol

The next four or five minutes passed without
conversation.
 
Amanda waited, and just
as she concluded that FilmFreak had signed off on her, he reappeared.

FilmFreak:
ok so which
airport should i book to? kansas city? branson? st. louis?

PrettyKitty29:
LOL WHAT?

“Mandy?” her mother called from downstairs.
 
“Are you laughing or crying?”
 
Amanda covered her mouth with her
hands.
 
She had let out a hearty
guffaw, but she didn’t want to admit to it.
 
After all, she was supposed to be grieving over her transgressions.

“Nothing!” she finally called down to her mother,
even though it didn’t make much sense as a response to the question.
 
Her fingers typed like lightning.

PrettyKitty29:
dude what are
you talking about?? are you really going to fly out here?? my parents would never
let you crash at my house btw

FilmFreak:
i wasn’t
planning on it.
 
i don’t even know
where you live, pretty.

It was true.
 
They knew nothing of each other’s real identities, and that was the way
Amanda preferred it.
 
It would be
entirely too easy for her to live completely on the Internet if she didn’t draw
the line somewhere.
 
HDU boasted
hundreds of thousands of members.
 
She could have all the friends in the world if it weren’t for her
nagging, romantic desire to meet people naturally.
 
She blamed Merit – the town was full of lifelong best
friends and high school sweethearts.
  

FilmFreak
: we don’t have to meet if you don’t want. i
just need a vacation. does that sound crazy?

PrettyKitty29
: vacation? no. missouri? yes.

FilmFreak
: oh well. just booked a flight to columbia
regional

Amanda’s eyebrows ascended halfway to her hairline.
 
It just so happened that he had chosen
the airport closest to Merit.
 
Once
he copied and pasted his flight information, she knew for sure that it was
real.
 
It was Thursday
morning.
 
He would arrive by Friday
evening.
 
Smiling, Amanda suddenly
realized that she was actually interested – even
excited
to possibly meet him.
 
She just couldn’t help but think that a person who booked a trip so
quickly was either extremely bored or, well, a little crazy.
 
But of all the moderators, FilmFreak
was the one who banned users at the drop of a hat.
 
He was quick-tempered and impulsive.

PrettyKitty29
: so this is actually happening then

FilmFreak
: damn straight. i’m coming to missouri!

It took a little longer to process.
 
Amanda laughed, unable to hide her joy now.
 
It blew her mind that FilmFreak would
be visiting her state, perhaps even her hometown.
 
Despite the fact that they were coworkers, it was still hard
to remember that he was
real
–
that anything associated with HDU was real.
 
The celebrities lived in a different world.
 
The members were faceless
usernames.
 
Even her friendship
with FilmFreak felt as if it were meant only for a virtual, somewhat fantasy
existence.
 
He was like a human
diary with the capability to respond.
 
Over the course of three years, Amanda had told him stories and secrets
that she had never shared with anyone else.
 
He was free of judgment because he did wilder things on a
daily basis.
 
The fact that she let
Princess chew on Megan’s favorite shoes was greatly outweighed by his spray-painting
of an ex’s contact info upon a busy sidewalk.
 
She wondered if that ex was Natalie.

Her mind raced with what felt like hundreds of
questions and thoughts.
 
FilmFreak
was coming.
 
Yet another element of
HDU would be crashing her everyday life in Merit.
 
Under normal circumstances, Amanda would be anxious, worried
about what the neighbors might think of her visitor from the Northeast.
 
But now, she couldn’t think of a better
time for all the disruptions – she was just about ready to skip town anyway.
 
She had nothing left to lose.

PrettyKitty29
: merit, missouri 65241. come visit

FilmFreak
: whoa

FilmFreak
: alriiight! looking forward to meeting you,
pretty!

PrettyKitty29
: seeya tomorrow, freak :D

~

Amanda had decided on meeting FilmFreak over at Tormey’s
Pub in Columbia, about a forty-minute drive from Merit.
 
She intended on taking him to Merit at
some point just to rile everyone up, but she didn’t want anyone to witness the first
encounter.
 
She was nervous,
excited and a little bit giddy.
 
She barely wanted FilmFreak to see her this way, let alone Tandy Mueller
or some equally nosy neighbor.
 
Her
palms were sweating and the only hope she had of easing her nerves was the Dark
N’ Stormy that the bartender was pouring.
 
It had been awhile since Amanda had met someone different and
interesting, and the idea was drawing out every emotion in her body.

She timidly touched her hair, which she had braided and
twisted into a bun at the top of her head.
 
Tied around the bun was a cerulean ribbon boasting a peacock
feather at its end.
 
She had told
FilmFreak to identify her with it, but really, it was just her effort to appear
interesting too – or at least not completely boring as she believed she
was.
 
On a normal day, her hair
either hung straight down to her chest or was pulled into a ponytail so that
she wouldn’t have to deal with it.
 
Makeup was mostly foreign to her, aside from the easier tips that she
had absorbed from Megan over the years.
 
On this day however, she had managed to pluck her eyebrows
and put on mascara, even curling her lashes beforehand.
 
Amanda wasn’t sure if the difference
she saw was truly the magic of cosmetics or the simple hint of life in her
eyes.
 
Before leaving, she hadn’t
even needed to bother with bronzer because her face was already flushed from anticipation.

“Here you go, miss.”
 
Just as the bartender presented her Dark N’ Stormy, Amanda
heard a hopeful voice behind her.

“Pretty?”

Without thinking, she took a gulp of her drink before
turning around.
 
It must have
looked like odd behavior, but she honestly believed that she would need
it.
 
Something about his voice made
her nervous, but she wasn’t quite sure what.
 
Once the alcohol slid down her throat, she spun around in
her barstool and gazed up at the boy before her, quickly realizing why his
voice had caused her to blush.

He was lean and tall – probably six-foot-two.
 
The sound of his greeting had come from
well above her head.
 
She had always
had a weakness for height.
 
Not
only that, he was… was he? Or was she just excited? No he was.
 
The stares of other girls confirmed
it.
 
He was
cute
.
 
And clearly delighted
to see her.
 

“It’s you,” he laughed with some disbelief.
 

“Yes.
 
Hi.”
Amanda covered her mouth with both hands, concealing her Cheshire Cat grin.
 
She dropped them only once she had gained
composure, her lips no longer twitching with the need to smile.
 
“Is it really you?” she giggled her
question, not wanting to say “FilmFreak” in public.

He nodded and mouthed his username, his hazel eyes
sparkling with laughter.
 
After a
short pause, he held his hand out to her.
 
“Ian Marsh.
 
Pleasure to
meet you.”

“Ian,” Amanda repeated with awe.
 
FilmFreak was an Ian.
 
She placed her hand in his and
shook.
 
“Amanda Nathan.”

“
Amanda
,”
Ian smiled.
 
“That fits.”

She observed him as he got situated, removing his
beautiful black leather jacket and draping it over the barstool before sitting
down.
 
He wore a heather gray
hoodie with some distressed maroon band T-shirt underneath.
 
His black jeans were fairly fitted,
bordering on tight, and his feet kicked around in a pair of red plaid Chuck
Taylors.
 
His vintage backpack hung
unzipped, and he seemed to like it that way.
 
He was cute, Amanda decided, but no one she could ever date.
 
She assumed he felt that way about her
too since he burped quite audibly after his first guzzle of beer, not bothering
to look attractive for her.
 
The
conclusion oddly relieved her of a pressure she hadn’t even realized she’d been
feeling.